Blackrammed
by Dreamnorn
Summary: A young tom discovers that he has an illness which makes his teeth and claws very frail. Can he find a way to live up to the expectations of the clan and find his own way to fight? Summary stinks; genre might change.
1. Chapter 1

**This is an ooooold idea for a story of mine which takes place during the first story of my DreamClan series. This character will show up once or twice in there as a minor, but I was always intrigued by his name and by his fighting style.**

**This is what happened to Rampaw during the first half of the first chronicle. All the characters in this story are MINE, but the name of "DarkClan" was originally that of a guild I was in. I used to role-play this character there, so I decided to take DarkClan with me into this story.**

--

Harmless Play

Ramkit shivered. The colder days of leaf-bare were always harsh in the Valley of the Lost. The short tufts of white fur that covered most of his body offered him some protection against the bitter cold, but it was not enough to make him feel warm and secure.

Outside the comforting hole that was the DarkClan nursery, Ramkit could hear his littermates Eaglekit and Mudkit playing in the freshly-fallen, swirled snow. The soft sounds the white substance made as it gently landed atop more of its kind made it sound almost like magic; and with the wind silently droning to the tune of the gradual covering of the landscape with the magic, it felt as though the DarkClan camp had slipped into a whole new world, nascent and different to the world that he knew.

Ramkit grunted. Why was he so cold? He took a moment to clean his paws, which were all the color of dry ground in the summertime. His ears, which were always curled backwards, were the only part of his body that always seemed to be perfectly warm.

"'Ey, Ramkit!" came a shout. The young tom looked up to see his older brother, Eaglekit, at the front of the nursery. His dark brown markings stained with the white of his fur and the clumping snow on his flank made him look like a dirty snowball. "C'mon out here! Mudkit and I are having a great time!"

Ramkit looked up at Eaglekit with his milky brown eyes. Finally he shouted, "Okay, give me a moment!" With a soft mumble of effort, Ramkit hauled himself onto his paws. The young, stocky tom twitched his stubby tail, flicking off a bit of dirt which was shamelessly clinging to his fluffy tail. With a soft thud, the kit stumbled outside to where his brothers were waiting.

Mudkit burbled, "What took you so long, Ramkit?" His dark, chocolate_*_ pelt was flecked with snow, giving Ramkit the impression that Mudkit was the target of all the snowflakes.

A short blast of cold air chilled Ramkit's whiskers. He shuddered, "Aren't you guys cold?"

Eaglekit shook it off with a playful, "Nah! Wanna play with us? Mudkit's pretending to be Bloodstar, and I'm the cat who eventually slays him!" _**_

Ramkit raised a whiskery eyebrow. "Then who will I be?"

"I donno. Maybe you can be the rival leaders who fight Bloodstar to try and protect their clans?"

_Not again…_ Ramkit thought. Though aloud he didn't voice his objection, he bitterly thought how he was always the role of characters who died off like flies. _For once, JUST ONCE, I'd like to be Bloodstar…_

Aloud, Ramkit smiled, "Well, sure!"

Eaglekit beamed and replied, "Sweet! Now do as I do, little brother, and you shall see what I'm talking about…"

"Wait, you mean I'm actually going to play-fight?" Ramkit chattered. Eaglekit and Mudkit never let him rough and tumble with them before.

For a moment, Eaglekit stood, puzzled. "Why, yes," he responded. Then he shrugged it off with a goofy grin and chuckled, "Well, enough of that! Now just watch me, brother, and you will see how a warrior really fights!"

Ramkit sat down, his dark brown eyes wide with wonder. "Alright!" he smiled, his face glowing with pure, unfiltered excitement.

Mudkit stood and cleared his throat. He then boasted in a mock-manly voice, "You shall never defeat me, Mountainstar! Not when I have a big army of evil cats on my side in order to take over the forest!"

Eaglekit meowed playfully, "Oh, yeah? Well we're tired of you trying to take over the forest and we want you gone, Bloodstar!"

In a rush, Ramkit's brothers started to attack each other, playfully biting and lightly scratching. Imaginary malice sparkled in their young eyes, making them look like reflections of what they might become when they achieve their warrior names. Mudkit weaved around Eaglekit, his claws making small impressions in the snow. Eaglekit quietly growled and pounced on top of his brother.

For a while Ramkit sat there, engrossed in his brothers' play fight. Finally, Eaglekit got off of Mudkit and meowed, "All right, little brother. You can try."

Ramkit gulped his fear. He stood before Mudkit, whose fur was covered with the gentle scratch marks of Eaglekit's claws. Ramkit blinked. _What do I say?_

"You're going down, Bloodstar!"

Mudkit raised a hairy eyebrow.

_Darn._

Mudkit then burbled, "No, YOU'RE going down!"

The chocolate-brown tom got into an attacking pose. Ramkit faltered. _What do I do?_

"YAH!" Ramkit did the first thing he could think of. He charged at Mudkit, his nose scratching the ground and his feet thudding against the snow. Mudkit rose in a pose for a playful strike, but he tried too late. Ramkit crashed into Mudkit's belly, making his older brother fall to the ground.

"Mudkit!" Eaglekit cried. Ramkit's other brother raced towards Mudkit, his dark blue eyes clouded with worry. "Mudkit, are you alright?"

Mudkit stood up. He was breathing like he had all the wind knocked out of him. "I'm fine," he spluttered with as much dignity as he could muster. Ramkit stared at his older brother, now looking so helpless in the snow.

Eaglekit turned to Ramkit and snarled, "What did you do to him?"

Ramkit, speechless, stammered, "I—I thought that I was supposed to attack…"

"This was a play-fight, not an actual battle! And what the _heck_ was that you just did?! It looked like you could have killed him!"

Part of Ramkit knew his brother was exaggerating; Eaglekit often stretched the truth. But Ramkit could only whimper, "I… I thought…"

Eaglekit growled as he led Mudkit back into the nursery. "Wait until mother hears about this," scolded his brother. "You're going to be really sorry then."

"I'm really sorry NOW!"

But it was too late. Eaglekit had already departed into the nursery, obviously going to wake up their mother and to tattle-tale on Ramkit. The young tom was left alone in the cold snow, imagining what his fate would be after his mother got a hold of him.

--

**(*): I use the word "chocolate" in the term for the color of a cat's coat. It's a perfectly usable term in this story without making it sound human, because I'm not comparing Mudkit's coat to the candy.**

**(**): In DarkClan, they imagined that Bloodstar was attacked by some of his rebelling warriors, and was thus led to his death that way. (**_**You might want to refer back to The Chronicles of DreamClan: The Kin of Bloodstar if you are too confused**_**).**

**Yeah. My beginnings for stories absolutely stink. Read and review, I guess. I don't know if I'll continue this or not, I might with enough positive reviews.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Could this be an update? Great StarClan, it is! I never thought that I would give this story more thought than had been put into the first section, but I guess I'm going to continue it a little more.**

**If anyone might be interested, I may draw a picture of how Ramkit looks (because he's a pretty interesting looking cat in my mind's eye)… but that's not going to happen. Then again, I said that before, so who knows?**

**--**

A Talk with Mother

With a soft thud, Ramkit sat on the crunchy snow. Still more of the white invaders were falling from the gray, swirling skies and onto the many other layers of white below. The crisp air smelled strongly of ice; a smell that had prickled in Ramkit's nostrils since he was but a newborn. He could hear the paw-steps of warriors going in and out of the large dent in the earth known as the DarkClan camp.

Ramkit grunted. _Why am I waiting here, when my mother is going to kill me?_ His curled ears twitched as a particularly heavy snowflake landed on his head.

And then another.

And another?

"What the…?" Ramkit looked up only to find that the sky was raining stones of solid ice, hurling down upon the camp like grappling warriors. Ramkit got to his paws as another one hit him in the face. "Ow," he grumbled as he started to run towards the nearest shelter.

The scene felt like it was dissolving into itself. Ramkit could almost see other warriors, panicking and blurring together in the white winter colors, making it look like the many patterns on a tortoiseshell's coat. The sounds of screaming apprentices who were caught by surprise seemed to be softened by the snow on the ground and impaled by the falling ice balls.

Ramkit fled into one of the dens, his stub of a tail quivering with fear. A loud snort and a gurgling yawn erupted behind him, making Ramkit's back fur rise in shock. Turning around, expecting to be eaten by a wild animal, Ramkit's small face came nose-to-nose with one of the DarkClan warriors; his father, Hawkbreath.

"Hm… what…?" Hawkbreath's lazy amber eyes looked up to his son's. The warrior got up, his long brown tail sweeping his bedding and his white chest fur covered with flecks of moss. Ramkit watched as his father yawned once more, blinked a few times, and then grumbled, "Now, what are you doing in here?"

Somewhere in Ramkit's memory, he recalled that his father wasn't the type of cat that easily forgives you for waking him up. Ramkit shivered, "Sorry, dad. It's just, all of a sudden ice was falling from the sky, and—."

"Confound it!" Hawkbreath intervened. He looked genuinely irritated. "How many times have I told you and your brothers not to wake me up?!"

Ramkit slowly backed away, his eyes shining with quiet fear. "Almost every day, father…"

"What? Every da— Yeah. Yeah I do." With that, Hawkbreath turned around and curled in his bed again.

The young tom knew it was wise to leave, even though the ice stones were still falling from the clouds and into the clearing. With a rush, Ramkit turned to leave… and bumped into another cat.

"Ooh," the she-cat exclaimed. Ramkit looked up to find himself staring into the dark blue eyes of his mother.

_Great,_ Ramkit thought. _Simply delightful._

"So there you are!" she cooed, carefully blocking Ramkit's escape route and smiling with a maternal twinkle in her eye. "I've been looking everywhere for you. Why did you run away?"

Ramkit looked at her with his milky brown eyes and mumbled fearfully, "Well, mother, ice started to fall from the sky and I was panicking and I feel guilty for knocking Mudkit down and—!"

"What did they do _this_ time, Honeymilk?" Hawkbreath crossly growled, unmoving from his warm bed.

Honeymilk twitched her creamy tail and replied, "Nothing you need to worry about, Hawkbreath. Now go back to sleep; you're expected for the evening patrol."

Ramkit could hear his father grumble as he silently began to snore again. Honeymilk then whispered gently, "Come now, Ramkit. Hailing is very common in Leaf-Bare, so you have nothing to worry about." Her voice softened, "As for Mudkit…"

"Is he okay?" Ramkit gasped, looking for reassurance from the cream-colored she-cat.

Honeymilk chuckled, "But of course he's okay! But I just wanted to let you know that even in fun, you can still hurt."

"I don't even know if I hurt him…" Ramkit breathed, "It looked like he was only winded."

"And he was, darling." Honeymilk wrapped her long tail around her anxious son and crooned, "Next time, though, try to be a little more careful. I know they don't let you play with them often, but that doesn't mean you need to assert yourself in such ways."

_Assert myself?_ Ramkit could only half-understand what she was talking about. _Does she think that I ran Mudkit over to show off how strong I was?_ "But it was just an accident! I didn't even know what I was doing."

Honeymilk purred, "Then there is no harm done. Just tell your brothers you're sorry for scaring them, and they'll forgive you."

"Tell that to Eaglekit…" Ramkit mumbled inaudibly. He turned his face to face Honeymilk, his fluffy ears curling up with affection for his parents. "Yes, mother." The tom rubbed his head against his mother's pelt and proceeded to the nursery.

After he left, Honeymilk purred, "They're all such sweet little boys, aren't they?"

"Harrumph," was all Hawkbreath had to say.

--

Ramkit entered the nursery unscathed. The hailstorm was but a short one, heralding the approaching spring. Inside the warm hollow Ramkit called his home was Eaglekit and Mudkit making a mess of their mother's bedding.

"Death to tyrant!" Eaglekit yowled playfully. Mudkit burbled happily as Eaglekit missed scuffing his ear and ended up tumbling head-over-heels onto the ground.

"Hi, there," Ramkit whispered, not sure if he was ready to say anything.

Mudkit turned to where Eaglekit stood, his brown eyes glowing. "Hello, Ramkit!"

Eaglekit just rolled his eyes.

"I just wanted to say that I'm sorry for knocking you down, Mudkit. It was an accident!"

"You should be!" Eaglekit snarled. His white paws thudded on the ground angrily. "He looked like he could have been really hurt." With a grumble, the kit slinked to his own quiet corner of the room, obviously ignoring Ramkit.

Mudkit wobbled over to Ramkit and meowed, "No worries, Ramkit. I wasn't hurt, I was just surprised." His eyes began to glow mischievously. "Did you see how fast you were going? It was so awesome!"

Ramkit smiled. Mudkit was always so forgiving. "It was not as awesome as you were when you were wrestling Eaglekit. I swear, he didn't stand a chance!"

His brother walked over to him and whispered, "Ignore him. He worries too much. I'm pretty sure he gets it from dad."

"No kidding." Ramkit's curled ears perked up a little.

"So," Mudkit offered, "do you want to play?"

--

**I'm not quite sure… the name "Honeymilk" came to me suddenly, and I instantly thought, "aww." :P I guess I might continue this after all… in correlation with my other Warriors fanfic, of course.**


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